


After the World Ends

by nelayn



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 09:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18133859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nelayn/pseuds/nelayn
Summary: A much more apt title would be: "Finarfin and Earwen, angst in three parts". Or, alternatively, "OTP: These two have to end up together or I'm done". Finarfin and Earwen try to find their way again after their world comes crashing down. Warning for mentions of Alqualonde, kinslayings and angst that I apologise for in advance. A relatively happy ending, because, as I said, these two have to end up together again or I'm done. Originally a birthday gift for a dear friend on tumblr.





	After the World Ends

It was like having his heart ripped out of his chest. No. That would have been easy. If that were happening then he would die, and leave this body behind to go to the Halls and he wouldn't have to be in so much pain. If that were happening, then maybe she would at least look at him. Maybe she would forgive him. But this was worse. 

Because nobody would look at him. He was walking towards Olwe's throne, armed guards all around him (not his. he couldn't be threatened. were they?), in painful silence, and around the throne, the Kings sons, their swords gleaming in the pale light of the lamps. His brothers. Standing were he would have stood, in what seemed like another life. His brothers. And next to them, just as silent, just as unmoving, the King's daughter.

His Earwen. He had the urge, like he had every waking moment of his life ever since all this had happened, to throw himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, and accept whatever she decided. But now was not the time for that. Now he was come as the Lord of his people, to bow before the King of the Teleri and formally issue an apology. It was simply a formality, it meant almost nothing. But though he may not have wished, for a single moment in all his life, to be in this position, he knew enough of diplomacy to know that if there was any hope for this to be fixed, however many millenia it took, he would have to try. So he bowed, and he said all the words he meant to say, and they reverberated across the beloved walls, where laughter had rang out on the day of his wedding. Words. What could words do?

His head was facing the floor, and he realised he was crying, because the seashells he was kneeling on were growing blurry. He didn't try to stop it. His voice didn't crack. He just talked. 

He could feel their auras, cold, subdued. He could feel the pain, and the betrayal, and inside him, he wanted to scream, for his brothers were gone, and his children gone with them, and he had turned back, he had left them to face the journey alone, his own children, because he couldn't go on, not without her, not like this, never like this, but he had betrayed her, his brother had killed her own and he had let her children go on alone. He couldn't stop seeing the blood, the red sea, he couldn't stop hearing the screams, even though he hadn't been there, he couldn't stop seeing his children's flaming eyes. Artanis had yelled, and screamed, about how she couldn't stay, not when they knew, when they had seen and done nothing, because how could she have seen when they had not? His boys had turned away, and Findarato had taken on his ring, and his responsibility, dutifully, quietly, and they had walked away. They didn't hate him. He would have felt that. But they understood each other too well. They knew that none of them could make any other decision. And that was worse.

He always felt like he walked between two worlds. And now there was none. He had lost all of his family, the ones he was tied to by blood and the ones he had chosen. His father was dead, and Olwe, his second father, the one who was always there, he was standing right in front of him and there was nothing but pain in his face.

And nobody was looking at him.

\--------------------------------------

There was a storm raging out at sea. Uinen's grief, they said. She didn't notice. The world could be falling apart right now, and she wouldn't care. But then again hadn't that already happened?

Her children were gone. 

She couldn't stop seeing their faces. Pale, rigid, their eyes burning. They had ran straight to her, amid all the chaos. She didn't know what they had seen. She couldn't even understand what had happened, exactly. Not until later. They had come too late. And yet she was relieved. This way, there could be no blood on their hands. This way, they wouldn't have to choose. She was no fool, to think that they would have stood aside. Not her sons. And definitely not her daughter.

Arafinwe had not come. It was perhaps for the better. She could not have faced him. Her mother's screams were there instead, and the cries echoing from the harbour.

She wanted to hate him. Hating him would be easy. If she could really hate him, she could feed on her rage, and she wouldn't have to think. She wanted to blame him, for putting them all in this place, in the middle of two worlds. She wanted to blame him for what his brother had done. 

She wanted to hate him for going on in the first place, and for following, after. She wanted to hate him for turning back, and leaving her children alone in the darkness. 

A part of her tried to. Very hard. The part that forced herself to walk out there and stand, facing him, unflinching, unmoving, unthinking. But that part couldn't win. She tried to close herself in, with her grief and her rage, where she wouldn't have to think. Not about him, not about any of them.

But the moment she saw him, the pale, sunken form of who he was, his tears hitting the floor,silently, and him not even trying to stop them, she knew it was impossible.

Because she knew him. She knew him as well as she knew herself, if not better. And as much as every single one of those choices had hurt her, she knew how much they hurt him, too. And she knew why he had still made them. He couldn't have acted any other way, not the man she loved. She wanted to blame him for trying to reconcile too many things all at once, for always trying to do the "right" thing, his duty. What was right,in this? What was duty? And to whom?

She knew that if he could, he would have thrown himself in front of them to try and stop the madness. She shuddered to think what would have happened then. But it wouldn't have changed things.

It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault her children, her fiery Noldorin children would never turn back. It wasn't his fault his people wanted to avenge their King. It wasn't his fault Morgoth had destroyed the light.

What his brother had done wasn't his fault.

Time, in this darkness, was difficult to measure. She didn't know how many nights, how many months, she had spent here, in her father's halls, among her mother's silent tears, and her brothers' hushed, angry whispers, and her father's deafening silence. Her father, whose voice was always booming in the halls, loud as the waves.

They avoided her gaze. They weren't blaming her for anything. But she reminded them of things they were trying to forget, she knew. She reminded them of Arafinwe, and she reminded them of the Noldor, and she reminded them of their dead son under the sword of her husband's brother.

She couldn't blame them. She could scarcely look herself in the mirror.But they forgot. They forgot that she,too, had lost. Her children were gone. All of them.

So when she walked out, to be met by the howling wind and the sea spray, nobody stopped her, nobody called her name. She walked almost unconsciously, but knew exactly where she was going. Her feet led her to the beach, by the trees. And he was there. As she knew he would be. She didn't know how, but here he was, soaking wet,waiting for her right next to the tree where he had first asked her to marry him.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to fall into his arms and cry and never stop. So she did. And he took her screams, and her fists,unmoving like a rock, stronger than anyone else gave him credit for being. And when she was done screaming, he held her in his arms, and they fell on their knees and they wept, for their children, and their world, for their happiness and love, until they were were both wet to their bone and their souls had ran dry. 

She wanted to hit herself for still feeling safe in his arms, like she belonged there, and he wanted to do the same for ever having thought he could leave without her. So when she stood up, hours later, and walked away, he let her go. All he said was her name. His voice was hoarse from crying. 

She didn't turn. She couldn't. Not yet.

\------------------------------------

He was exhausted. 

He should be used to it, by now. It had been quite some time. The rebuilding of Tirion had started months ago, in the days after his return.

And he wasn't alone. Nerdanel had helped. He had asked her to, and she had thrown herself to the task with a zeal greater than anyone's. He could understand the need. Throwing yourself at work kept your mind busy. And when it was busy it didn't give you time to think about things that hurt too much. Not that the thoughts didn't come. But they couldn't surrender to them, or they would be all lost.

It was she who had made the lamps that now lit all of Tuna, until such a time when the Valar's plan was fully revealed. And Mahtan, her father, whom the Noldor who had stayed behind appeared to trust more than they did him, had stood beside him, and led the craftsmen who rebuilt the city. Arafinwe was grateful. They had never talked much, but they understood each other. They understood what needed to be done.

But it was to his mother that he owed the most, as always. He didn't know what he would have done if she hadn't been there, caring, efficient, strong, a Queen of the Noldor whom his people knew and respected, when he had been but the quiet prince who never involved himself into politics or diplomacy, the one who lived among the Teleri.

She had been there for him, to give council, but mostly to listen to him and answer his questions, as she always had. She had been there when he hurt so much he couldn't cry, and when he doubted himself so deeply he wanted to scream.

She watched him, her sweet, golden haired boy, try to bear the world on his shoulders, and she wished Earwen was here. They needed each other, to survive this. But she said nothing. It wasn't her place. The time hadn't come, yet.

Findis had been here,too, and they both needed her. 

They helped him to move in the palace, and clear out the archives, and documents that were scarcely relevant anymore, since they referred to a population that was gone,now. They helped him clean out some things Nolofinwe had left. His brother's notes, the ones he had made in those first years after their father had left. Those were the most helpful. He saw his own scribbles here and there, and he remembered helping his brother with his work, in what seemed like another life. They had still hoped, then, that their father would return, their brother would see reason, and all would be well. And they had been wrong. Thinking of his brother made his heart ache. He and his mother had talked of him, once or twice. But only in passing. It hurt too much.

Ever since that night at the beach in Alqualonde, when he had held her in his arms, and she had walked away, he had not spoken to Earwen. 

Anaire, who had visited, told him she was well. She told him Alqualonde,too, was being rebuilt. And he had to make his aching heart stop wishing he was there.

But he wrote her letters. Long letters, telling her of his labours, and his thoughts, and bittersweet memories of their children,that came to him unbidden, like stabs in the heart, and always signing "forever yours". She did not reply. He didn't expect her too. (He didn't know that those letters nurished her, that they gave her comfort because she could feel him next to her, and she knew that even though they were both changed, he was still her Arafinwe. They made her feel their hope was not lost. Or perhaps he did know.) He had not stopped wishing she was beside him. But he knew it was not time, not yet.

And so the days passed. And here he was. And he was exhausted.

He heard the murmurs outside.

"The Queen is here"

That should have stirred him, but he was too tired to think that the guards could not be alarmed by his mother's presence.

She heard their murmurs as she walked up the stairs. 

"The Queen is here"

She could not imagine herself using that title. There was a Queen of the Noldor, living,and it was not her. But she was the King's wife, and they let her pass.

He was there, leaning above a table full of designs, half awake, and half asleep. He was exhausted.

Her Arafinwe. Her sweet, quiet, golden haired prince. The one who never wished to rule. And now he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She had had her own burden to bear. She still bore it. And she knew that he had, too. But she had known all along, and feared to face it, that her place was here. Next to him. The only way to go on was if they were together. Together to bear their grief, their pain, and their burden, to build their future,or they would be lost. And their children, if ever they returned, would find naught but ruin.

She walked up to him. He didn't move. He was sure he was dreaming. But it was not a dream. She was here. His Earwen. More real than any dream. She took his hands in her own, and she held them, and in their hearts, a weight was lifted.

Their tears were salty, like the sea. But for the first time since the darkness, these tears brought relief. They were both here, and they would go on together, and there was hope.


End file.
